Django Forms custom error message in views

Question

This is my view:

if request.method == 'POST':
        form = TeacherRegister(request.POST)
        #Gets school object from email domain.
        email = form['email'].value().split('@')[1]
        try:
            school = School.objects.get(email_domain = email)
        except ObjectDoesNotExist:
            #add custom error message here

        if form.is_valid():
            user, Teacher = form.save()
            Teacher.school = school
            Teacher.save()
            user.groups.add(Group.objects.get(name='Teacher'))
            #user.is_active to stop users logging in without confirming their emails

            user.is_active = False
            user.save()
            #Sends confirmation link.
            send_confirmation_email(request, user)

            args = {'email': user.email,
                    'link': user.Teacher.school.email_website}

            return render(request, 'email/token_sent.html', args)

        else:
            args = {'form': form,}
            return render(request, 'users/teachers.html', args)

These lines are what I am trying to work with:

email = form['email'].value().split('@')[1]
try:
    school = School.objects.get(email_domain = email)
except ObjectDoesNotExist:
    #add custom error message here

This is the HTML I have for the email field:

<div class="required field" >
            {{ form.email.label }}
            {{ form.email }}
            {{ form.email.help_text }}
           <!-- <label>Email</label>
           <input placeholder="Email" type="email" name="email" autofocus="" required="" id="id_email"> -->
        </div>

How can I get it to say, if no school object is returned, something along the lines of 'School not found, check your email'?

Thanks

Answer 1

You need to perform validation on the form side. Implement clean_email method in the form:

def clean_email(self):
    email = self.cleaned_data.get('email')
    email = email.split('@')[1] 
    try:
       school = School.objects.get(email_domain = email)
    except ObjectDoesNotExist:
       raise forms.ValidationError(''School not found, check your email')
    return email

Now in template you can show this error right after email field:

 {{ form.email.label }}
 {{ form.email }}
 {{ form.email.errrors }}
 {{ form.email.help_text }}

Answer 2

You can try Django's built-in messages framework. Try this:

try:
    school = School.objects.get(email_domain = email)
except ObjectDoesNotExist:
    messages.error(request, 'School not found, check your email')

And then somewhere above your form, add this:

{% if messages %}
    {% for message in messages %}
        <div class="alert {% if message.tags %} alert-{{ message.tags }}{% endif %}">{{ message|safe }}</div>
    {% endfor %}
{% endif %}

Hope it helps!